My name is Gertie Pierre, and I am from the Sechelt Nation.
I work for the residential school society, and I am one of the committee members for the study on murdered and missing women. I have travelled to Manitoba, Prince George, and Williams Lake and listened to the stories of grandmothers, mothers, sisters, and children about their mothers having been murdered and gone missing, and now there are men who are going missing and being murdered.
I think about what it is going to take for the government to start doing something. They say that they've hired all these commissioners to start doing something about the murdered and missing women. We had one meeting with the commissioner, and I don't even know where their office is. I don't know when they'll have another meeting in regard to the seriousness of what's going on.
I always say that the people in Downtown Eastside weren't born to be living Downtown Eastside. They're there because they came from residential schools or they're the product of residential schools. My children are products of residential school. I went to residential school for 10 years, and my husband went for 13 years. My daughter said to me, “I didn't have to go to residential school because I was raised in one in the home.” Everything that we did.... We disciplined them just like they disciplined us in residential school. There was no love, there were no hugs, and there was no caring for them because I wasn't healed at that time.
I look at all these young girls who are running away from home and ending up in Downtown Eastside, or they're being murdered, or they're going missing, and it's because of that. In the home that they lived in, there was no love. We were never taught that in residential school. All we were taught was a lot of anger and hate. We were put down, and we were never praised. I could never remember a nun, a brother, or a priest praising me for anything. They just made me feel like I was nothing and I was going to end up as an alcoholic, which I did. I was an alcoholic for 35 years, from 15 until 35, and then I decided enough was enough. I tried to commit suicide a lot of times because I just couldn't stand myself because of the way I was brought up in residential school. They made you feel lesser than....
I decided I couldn't kill myself by overdosing on my prescription sleeping pills, Valium, and drinking, so I had to start to look at sobering up. I had four children at that time. They were taken away by the ministry, and I was all by myself, so I decided to sober up. I sobered up in 1981. My husband was an alcoholic, and we decided to go through a treatment centre. We went, and we've been 35 years clean now.
I have to say that the children are really suffering. In my community, they start young. They are 12, 13, or 14 years old, and they're already into drinking and starting to experiment with coke, crystal meth, and marijuana. We've heard that it's peddled in elementary school. They have dealers outside of an elementary school to sell drugs to the children. In the high school they're up there peddling their drugs.
I really believe that they need to look at more treatment centres, programs, and services for our youth to make them come to realize the dangers of what drugs and alcohol are doing to them.
They're becoming alcoholics and addicted to drugs at a younger age, and we don't have treatment centres for younger children who are addicted. They land up in the city, and they're living on the streets. I walk in Downtown Eastside and I see young children down there. It really concerns me: parents are looking for them because they are missing, and they don't know where they're at. I believe the government has to look seriously at what is going on with our younger generation because if they don't we're going to keep on losing them. They're going to go missing, and they're still going to be murdered.
My niece was brutally murdered in 1992. They started the march because of my niece because she was so brutally murdered. Now the murderer is trying for parole. The family is trying to prevent him from coming out because he's such a horrible person. I'm hoping he doesn't get parole and that he won't do again what he did to other women on the streets.
Thank you for listening; I really appreciate it.
[Witness speaks in an aboriginal language]